Carling to unveil its first cider in the UK

The new 4.5% abv “modern premium cider” comes from Herefordshire and is the latest addition to Carling’s stable of products.

Carling British Cider will launch exclusively in the off-trade in March 2013 and will be available in 500ml and 275ml bottles.

In a statement the company said that after a year of “refining and perfecting the cider”, consumer tests carried out by MCBC Consumer Research put the new cider ahead of the current market-leading brands on “taste, refreshment and likelihood to buy”.

Jeremy Gibson – brand director for Carling at Molson Coors UK said: “Our aim was to make a product that beats the competition on taste and refreshment and Carling British Cider has done just that. The consumer response has been overwhelmingly positive, proof that the time and investment we’ve made to ensure it is a fantastic product has paid off.

“Carling British Cider adds to the diverse portfolio of drinks we already offer to our off-trade customers and their shoppers. Following 30 years of success for Carling, we are entering a growing cider market using the strongest brand name in the industry.”

Molson Coors has said it will be investing around £4.5 million in a marketing campaign for the launch of Carling British Cider, which will be taking aim at an off-trade market that was worth £869m last year.

9 Responses to “Carling to unveil its first cider in the UK”

How do they manage to change a cider, which ferments out using its natural yeast to around 7.5%, to one with an abv of 4.5%? Do they simply add water? I guess the development cost is making that water taste like the 7.5% cider originally did! Or did they fail to let the yeast finish its job, and pasteurise the stuff before it was finished? If so, why? Clearly these folk no nowt about cider and everything about matching Stella in idiocy!

Your observations are correct Pete. Well almost. industry standard procedure on this sort of manufactured fizzy apple drinks are to add apple concentrate, mainly form China, to water, sugar, fructose, corn syrup and the like. Ferment to a finished product of about 12% before the real jiggery poker of water, flavours, sugars etc begins. Oh forgot to mention that a few apples fro the UK are always added so that this can be slapped proudly on the packaging!